


root beer

by beckk



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 11:23:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2466458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckk/pseuds/beckk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a strict policy against country music, but Ray has somehow weaseled around it and playfully said that no, Brad, folk music was not, in fact, country.</p>
            </blockquote>





	root beer

**Author's Note:**

> Written for an AP Lit assignment, and for my good friend Bea. Assignment was to inspire a sense of peace/pleasure, with a Greek allusion. Severely botched the second part, but hey, have a really secretly gay road trip blurb.

It’s late afternoon, sunlight heavy and orange catching in Ray’s eyelashes and gilding all of the world around them in light. His mouth tastes like cheap root beer, stale and warm on the tongue, world awash in what can only be described as the color brown on his tongue. Golden rays slant easily through the windows, bouncing off the shiny black top and surrounding miles and miles of golden wheat. He’s hungry, sort of, in this detached, contented way, their last stop at a backwoods little roadside barbecue stand resting hours behind them. They’ve still got some peanut butter sandwiches stored away, somewhere buried in the backseat. He considers it, seriously, head tilting back as he basks in the light and thinks about how they’d packed those sandwiches a week ago. Any thought of before their trip makes him shiver a little, despite the warmth of the car beneath him and presence beside him. Ray is a sprightly spirit, all easy smiles and grand declarations. There’s little that he cannot turn into one of his legendary rants, vulgar and enthusiastic as in everything he does.

  
He offers a glance to his companion, noting with mild affection the intent way he stares at the road, the firm grip upon the wheel, the way he’s shouting along to the folk songs blasting on the radio despite not knowing the words. There’s a strict policy against country music, but Ray has somehow weaseled around it and playfully said that _no_ , Brad, folk music was _not,_  in fact, country. Either way, he finds himself smiling, a tiny, rare thing, enraptured in the sight and soaking it in, Ray side eying him as he shifts in his seat, smile like starbursts in response to his own. He is vibrant and bright at all times, even now, with two hours of sleep and a hundred odd waking, wind ruffling a shock of dark hair, ugly golden Elvis glasses an eyesore. Still, through it all, they’re both smiling.

“Five dollar, make you holler- see somethin’ you like, homes?” Ray hollers out over the wind and the radio, grin turning salacious as he spares a glance from the road for Brad. He doesn’t offer up a response, merely shakes his head and looks back out over the flashing fields full of every crop imaginable. There’s a fear, deep seated and baseless, drawn up by his return to the thought of the sandwiches. A fear that if he were to eat them, if he was to think of the time before their road trip, he would never see these golden waves and golden boy, again. He can’t possibly conceive it, a life without Ray, without cheerful banter and days spent side by side. But if he ate those sandwiches, well; he’d be banished away, stuck forever in the world they came from. It is not, frankly, a world he wants to live in.

A new song shifts onto the radio, and Ray releases a jubilant cry before eagerly falling into time with the beat, shouting the words out the window. It drags Brad from his thoughts, a smile wider than before slipping on as he utters a real, sincere laugh. All the worry and doubt fades away, the off-tune warbling drowning out all the silence of his life. It is moments like these that he has come to love, embracing them as part of everyday life. They pass an old farm, and then another, and almost spook a horse and its rider as they continue soaring past, ascending to some higher existence through song. Even with the never ending stretch of sound coming from Ray’s mouth, it’s an altogether peaceful existence, just as it has been for the past several days, and would, no doubt, continue to be in the coming hours. It is not calm, not quite, but there’s a contented curl to his stomach, to the way he reaches over and cuffs Ray over the head and makes him pull over at the next town for dinner.

They grab a late lunch at a local restaurant, goofing off and continuing their usual conversations. Ray is a general nuisance, but the waitress seems to find them amusing. Satisfied with having charmed the pants off of yet another stranger, it’s Ray’s turn to look doubtful. Brad waits out the sudden silence, one eyebrow climbing skyward as he patiently sits through whatever internal battle Ray was fighting. It ends, surprisingly enough, just as it had begun; “Hey, you wanna try and reach the West coast?” He blinks across at Brad just as Brad does the same for him. It’s fairly obvious, in a way, that Ray’s having doubts. Wondering if Brad wants to go back. If he’s tired of this charade at living they’re pulling. As is typical of Ray, it is completely baseless. “Yeah, man, of course I do. I promised you we’d see Yosemite, didn’t I?” It takes a long moment for Ray to process, but then he’s smiling, elated, and Brad can’t help but respond in kind.

It is not until an hour later, when they’re headed down the road again and he’s being lulled off to sleep by the soft vibrations and rumblings of the car, that he realizes how truly happy he is. He dreams of a warm presence by his side, a hand on his own, and thousands of miles waiting before them. Even if they are banished back to the cold cruelty of the real world, of their old lives, he finds he wouldn’t mind it, so much. Not if he has Ray by his side.


End file.
